Hermaphrocrab!

[Ghoulish Delight]

Freaky, a crab that's literally half male and half female.

Johnson named the crab "Jerry," after the talk-show host.


"We thought Jerry Springer would be the only place where the crab would feel comfortable," he said. "He has a lot of unusual stuff on that show."

Actually, Johnson conducted his own experiment before handing the crab over to scientists. He put the crustacean in a floating tank with a female crab that was ready to mate.


At first the bi-gendered crab cradled the female crab, as if it was protecting it. That's male behavior. But a day later, the crab let go and gobbled up half the female crab - a sign of female aggression in a species where cannibalism is common.

http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/4616610/detail.html

[blueerica]

Oh my! Interesting link...

Yeesh!

[Moonliner]

Well I guess that's cool and all, but it ain't no two faced cat (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/06/16/national/a195752D37.DTL&type=printable).

[Kels]

crab ~ wow!

cat ~ :eek:

[Cadaverous Pallor]

I think Moonliner is busy trying to one-up my husband. :p

That crab thing is odd, but that cat looks like a nightmare come to life. :eek:

[Moonliner]

I think Moonliner is busy trying to one-up my husband. :p

I'm really not spending any time at all on that.

[Prudence]

I can't remember if I was in the Louvre or Versailles at the time, but I was somewhere in a room of life-sized and larger-than-life-sized Greek statuary and had this nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right. Somewhere in France is a whole room of hermaphoditic scuplture.

[Not Afraid]

Here's one in Rome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:RecliningHermaphrodite.jpg) and another in the Louvre (http://www.studiolo.org/Mona/images/HermaphriditeFrontLouvre.jpg).

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

This nicely compliments the Times article I was reading yesterday about gender and the brain.

"True, gender identity in the marine world isn't as simple as it is with humans. Some fish change gender during their lives. But this crab was probably half male, half female from the point of conception, according to Al Place, a geneticist with the University of Maryland's Center of Marine Biotechnology."

As simple? Hmm, methinks this is just furthre proof that gender isn't really simple period. This kind of split does, I believe, exist in the human species, though it's not as obvious to spot as a red and blue claw.

Love this kind of stuff.

Thanks, GD.

[wendybeth]

Both stories were intriguing and creepy, but the pic of the cat/s wins for sheer gross-outedness.

[Kevy Baby]

For those who didn't read the story, I shall share some of my favorite tidbits:

"bilateral gynandromorph"
A quick anatomy lesson: a jimmy's [male crab] bottom is shaped like the Washington Monument, and a sook's [female crab] bottom looks like the dome of the Capitol building.